Measuring impact can be tricky when addressing wicked policy challenges

How do you know whether a policy or a program that you’re undertaking is working? What about when the problem that you’re addressing is particularly complex? We know that when we’re driving a car putting your foot on the accelerator makes it go, but we also know that the accelerator isn’t the only thing that causes the car to move – there is a massive range of interrelated and interdependent factors that propel us into motion.

Addressing complex social problems means that we need to identify the connections and causal pathways between multiple factors, explain what drives change in these factors and the problem as a whole, identify the levers that will drive change, develop strategies for moving these levers, and set specific short-, medium- and long-term outcomes and identify what is required to achieve them.

But don’t worry – you don’t have to do it alone. The cornerstone for making this happen is to bring together a group of individuals and organizations working on the challenge and to answer the questions together. Chances are you won’t get it right the first time… and that’s fine. The important thing is to set clear starting points and regularly evaluate your success based on your short-, medium and long-term outcomes. It’s better to make a start than to wait for the perfect theory to come along.

Finally, remember that evaluation isn’t the same as auditing. Auditing gives you a fixed result that tells you important things like whether you’ve used your funding well. Evaluation, on the other hand, gives you information about what’s working and what’s not and whether you’re on the right track. Think of evaluation as a learning tool – it helps you to refine your work and gives you an opportunity to try new things.

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Acknowledgement of Traditional Land

We would like to acknowledge this sacred land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.

Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.

Revised by the Elders Circle (Council of Aboriginal Initiatives) on November 6, 2014

In the spirit of equity and inclusion, if we can improve on this statement, please contact us. Thank you.